The Dawson Community College softball women are on fire. They’re 39-3 this season, which is the best Division II junior cCollege record in the country. 39 wins are also a school record and have earned DCC its first ever D2 Top 20 ranking. Safe to say it’s been a dream season.
“Yeah, it’s kind of unreal,” head coach Jim LeProwse told MTN Sports. “It’s been a fantastic season.”
“We get a lot of help from our community and stuff, and just knowing we can pay it forward to them being so great,” said Kallie Bean who splits time between first base and the outfield. “We do get a pretty big crowd and feels great to know that people have our back, being so far from home, some of us.”
For the first time ever, Dawson will host the NJCAA Region XIII Division II Softball Championships Friday through Sunday in Glendive. Tickets are $10 per day or $15 for the weekend. Bucs Club members will get in free with season passes. DCC faculty, staff and students also get in free with their school ID.
LeProwse has coached the Bucs for nine years and a successful weekend would run his total number of regional championships at DCC to six.
The saying is, defense wins those championships and right now DCC is watching freshman pitchers Shelby Martin and Alexa Kappal shut everybody down..
“Yes, and they do a fantastic job,” LeProwse said without hesitation. “They keep the scores low and let our offense go to work. Couldn’t tell you off hand, I know there were quite a few no-hitters thrown between the two of them, too.”
Offensively, it would take a while to cover just how dominant Dawson is. Let’s just say the Bucs are top five in the nation in nearly every category and lead the nation in runs scored and RBIs.
“We even have girls on the bench, like you can pull probably any girl from the bench and they can hit ball just as hard as someone in the lineup,” said outfielder Trinity Anderson. “We just have such a variety this year.”
“I think it’s just pitch selection and knowing that we have each other’s backs,” Bean said. “We do a lot of hitting practice and make it pretty fun for ourselves seeing how many we can all hit out of the park.”
Out of the park. That sums up this season as the Bucs shatter school records left and right.
They knew early this might be a special run after opening the season against — and handling — teams that were nearly 25 games into their seasons.
“We went down to Arizona at the beginning of the season and played 10 games down there,” LeProwse recalled, “and we came back with a 9-1 record. The best we’d (ever) had up to this point was about a .500 record coming out of there.”
DCC is hoping to close even stronger than that 9-1 start. It is mathematically possible.
And just in case visiting teams at this week’s regional are wondering how deep the outfield should play?
“When we were talking about power, the other night I gave each girl 30 swings,” LeProwse recalled, “and we hit 120 balls out of the park.”
